Who Designed the M1 Carbine

That was a pretty cool read. Thanks for sharing! Its fascinating how that little carbine came about.
 
There is one person who I don't think gets nearly enough credit for in the M1 carbine. John Garand. Yes I know that he didn't actually work on the carbine, but the carbine is basically a shrunken and simplified M1 garand. For some reason though its always discussed as if Winchester or Williams came up with the whole thing as a completely spontaneous invention. I've read that it was a shrunken down version of 30/06 rifle winchester was working on. If that is the case then the the 30/06 rifle must have look an awful lot like an M1 garand. It's pretty obvious they were looking at the M1 garand bolt and reciever and carrier and said okay lets just make this smaller and lighter.
 
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someguy2800 said:
There is one person who I don't think gets nearly enough credit for in the M1 carbine. John Garand. Yes I know that he didn't actually work on the carbine, but the carbine is basically a shrunken and simplified M1 garand. For some reason though its always discussed as if Winchester or Williams came up with the whole thing as a completely spontaneous invention. I've read that it was a shrunken down version of 30/06 rifle winchester was working on. If that is the case then the the 30/06 rifle must have look an awful lot like an M1 garand. It's pretty obvious they were looking at the M1 garand bolt and reciever and carrier and said okay lets just make this smaller and lighter.
Click to expand...
Possibly. The bolt rotates/functions similarly. But everything else is radically different. Trigger group/design is very different, as is how it interfaces with the receiver. Safety operation. Gas system. Slide/op rod. Magazines.
 
THAT"S ALL Williams contributed to the carbine(short stroke piston).......Winchester designed ALL The rest. of the rifle. In documentaries Williams was a PIA to work with and DID NOT like the carbine design at all.
 
The "carbine" that Williams made in prison and which was shown testfired in the wartime bio movie was his carbine version of the Remington 8 semi- auto rifle, using a floating chamber system in place of long recoil of the huge barrel jacket of the Model 8 rifle. That test gun still exists on a museum.

As Pugsley noted, the design of the M1 Carbine was a team effort. David Marshal Williams however was the most colorful of the team and made a better subject for a popular movie.
 
Marshall Williams was also a convicted murderer. He killed a Sheriff Deputy, and it wasn't some heat of the moment vague misunderstanding. He ambushed law enforcement from the treeline as they were leaving from raiding his liquor still and siezing his mash. I somewhat think the story of him developing weapons while in prison was kinda cool, at least in the aspect of then vs now (that would never be allowed today), but that doesn't change what he did.
 
someguy2800 said:
but the carbine is basically a shrunken and simplified M1 garand.
Click to expand...
Winchester's own history states they started with their repeater in 32 win self-loading, which is also the source for the magazine used. Rotary bolts were not exactly new nor novel; the short gas system was a virtual necessity given the Ordnance requirement fr a five pound weapon.
 
They may have started with the WSL but got away from it pretty fast.

Wonder how a .30x.351 like the French 8mm Ribeyrolles would have gone over. Could not have been as light a pistol substitute, though, and we had the Garand.
 
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